Crusaders

In 638, an Egyptian Muslim man was the leader of Jerusalem and approved of anyone of any religion to come and pray there. Jerusalem was an incredibly sacred city for 3 different religions for it had a holy praying shrine of each religion. The Dome of Rock Mosque where the Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammed rose up and visited heaven, the Church of Holy Sepulchre where Christians believe Jesus was buried and finally the Wailing Wall (aka Western Wall) – the last remaining part of King Herod’s temple and a site of pilgrimage for the Jews.

This was quite a peaceful time, right up until 1079, where everything changed. A Turkish Muslim leader took over Jerusalem and had a different opinion from the Egyptian leaders. By his point of view, if you were not Muslim, you were not allowed to come and pray, so Jerusalem was basically a Muslim only area.

The Christians were horrified and soon enough, the Pope had made a call to fight for their rights to once again be allowed into the holy land. Word spread and soon enough the Christians had an army of peasants and knights.

And they set out on an adventure to fight for their right to pray…

1.     The People’s Crusade – the first group of people to return the Pope’s call and fight for his army to forgive their sins. The Christians killed 10,000 Jews on their journey for their gold, although soon enough supplies and weapons ran out, most people were killed and the rest were kept and used for slavery. It was the year of 1096 and they were strongly defeated by the Muslims because they had almost no training and few knights whereas there were thousands of regular peasants.

2.     The First Crusade – it was 1097 and on their journey they lost half of their army due to disease, starvation and small battles. Their leaders were William the Conqueror and Robert of Normandy and unlike the People’s crusade; they took over Jerusalem for about 6 decades.

3.     The Second Crusade – leader King Louis was in charge, it was 1147 and the Muslims took over Jerusalem once again. They were not as blood thirsty as the Christians but somehow managed to overtake them.

4.     The Third Crusade – year 1189 where leaders Richard King of England & Philip were the leaders. Unfortunately one of them drowned before they made it to the battlefield, although they did win some land and freedom to pray in Jerusalem, however the Muslim’s were still in charge.

5.     The Fourth Crusade – horrible time which ended up being a Christian verse Christian fight, with people everywhere just killing and raping one another. 1202 was certainly a disgusting time in medieval history and was lead by Pope Innocent the third.

6.     The Children’s Crusade – In 1212, it was the children who fought. Nicolas and Steven were the leaders and there was a massive 30,000 kids who wanted to escape home. They followed a German man in the fight, however ended up getting sold for slavery and prostitution.